Danger Will Robinson

Life as a Secret Service agent can’t be much fun. Everywhere, you are looking for Danger. No matter what it is, you are programmed to regard it as a potential Menace. Every person, place, and thing—all must be given the stinkeye. You are like that robot in Lost in Space, forever primed to shout “Danger Will Robinson!”

There is not a lot of room for error in your occupation. If you have a bad day on the job, the president goes on a ventilator, or into a box. The stresses are such that sometimes you must consume vast quantities of intoxicants, and bark at your prostitute that you don’t feel like paying her usual fee. Then your name gets in the papers, and you are demoted, relegated to strapping Captain Underpants’ dog onto the roof of the car, or recurrently returning one of the Bush daughters to the vertical, after inebriants crash her to the floor.

Currently Secret Service agents are casing Thailand, in advance of a visit to that nation by President Obama. And everywhere they go, they are paralyzed by Fear.

As the Bangkok Post reports, they were convinced that the water lizards wandering about the grounds of Government House are actually carnivorous Komodo dragons, tasked with eating the president.

They were also totally opposed to antique cannon, relics of a Thai king who died 87 years ago, that sit peaceably on the lawn: these, the agents Knew, would blow off the president’s head, as soon as he came within range.

Of course, maybe a few Komodo dragons and active cannon might be expected, by these ever-alert SS agents, knowing, as presumably they do, that Obama, together with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, are arriving in Thailand to attempt to further enlist that nation in America’s perverse War on Terra.

Seems the Americans want to establish “a humanitarian and disaster relief force” at U-Tapao, a Thai naval and air force complex built by the US military when it was being beaten like a gong during the Vietnam War.

After that war, US uniforms, these from Thailand got lost. Thais who are Sane prefer they stay that way.

But apparently Al Qaeda and Co. are becoming Boring, and so a new Enemy has to be found that can fill the Americans with fear and loathing. Looks like China—previously scheduled to be the Big Meanie before Atta and the boys veered the planes into the towers—is being test-driven for the role.

Read this nimrod, who pounds the desk at some Thai university.

“The return to U-Tapao would be very symbolic for the US, sending a message to China that it is returning to mainland South-East Asia,” said Panitan Wattanayagorn, a military affairs expert at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.

But such a development would require the consent of parliament, where it is likely to face strong opposition. Large segments of Thai society might also think twice about having US soldiers based permanently on their soil again, he said.

“The US is returning to Southeast Asia whether you like it or not,” Mr Panitan said. “So do you want to engage in the return or stand idle and be seen as a Chinese satellite?”

The US might look beyond Thailand for new bases in Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and even Vietnam, Mr Panitan said.

Oh noez! Danger Will Robinson! “Chinese satellite!”

Gadz. Lived so long, I’ve heard this song before. It was bad then. It’s bad now.

The problem is that when you’re a Secret Service agent. and you detect a Menace or a Fear, you are supposed to instantly whip out your Uzi, or at least give somebody a chop to the head. I don’t know that you’d want to do that. : /

Crying “Wolf!!” is and has been such a state of the nation that no one in their right mind listens any more. Even that despicable series of alert colors has been away from the forefront for a bit now. Justifying bad behavior by government by pointing fingers has been part of the course of human history for far too long. Maybe one day we will awaken and find ourselves in the midst of true humanity, but the odds of such an occurrence seem to be pretty darned small.

The madness is never ending. In Oklahoma in the 70’s we ate dinner in bomb shelters built during the 50’s. We were avoiding tornadoes. There seems to be no end to the inventiveness of throwing ‘fear’ at our populous.

The bigger benefit may have been to the politicians who use those issues to insure the public becomes more and more compliant in the name of fear and government protecting our poor souls. The more fear instilled the more freedoms we seem to lose in time.